Violent J Interviewed about God, Fred Durst, the FBI, more!

One of our FLH Forum regulars, MitchellKing, came across a brand new interview with Violent J conducted by the OC Register. In the interview, J speaks on Hallowicked, how he and Shaggy have been able to get along with each other for over three decades, quite a bit about God/religion, and lots more.

It’s a pretty lengthy article, and one thing that surprised me was that he spoke about the Shaggy 2 Dope drop kick. He says that ICP and Fred Durst are actually friends, and that the drop kick was definitely more of a prank than anything.

The interview speaks on a bunch of topics we pretty much already know about, but doesn’t say a word about Fearless Fred Fury. When will we get some kind of update about the album? Hopefully soon. For now, check out the latest from Violent J.

Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse is a sincerely nice guy when he comes on the line from the road in Texas, which really shouldn’t be a surprise, but then again his first name literally is Violent.

There’s an outdoor gig that night in Lubbock and rain in the forecast, and all the guys on the bus have been passing around the same cold, but Violent J is upbeat despite all that. Nothing, he says, can put a damper on the 25th annual Hallowicked Traveling Freak Show Tour that brings him and his Insane Clown partner Shaggy 2 Dope to Anaheim on Wednesday.

“It’s Halloween time, that’s like our special time,” he says of Hallowicked, which started out as a one-off Halloween show in their hometown of Detroit and over time spread to a month or so of expanded performances across the United States. “It’s probably the same for every band that’s ever been similar to us with the face paint and stuff. Probably Alice Cooper does shows all October. (Bleepin’) Kiss probably does.

“So we try and step it up,” Violent J says. “We try to make sure we got a big … show. And pretty much we kiss any chance of making any money goodbye by bringing so many guys and doing as big a show as we can afford.”

Insane Clown Posse might be the most misunderstood long-running musical act out there. They wear insane clown-appropriate face paint. Their style of rap often falls into the sub-genre of horrorcore, with lyrics that might double as pitches for B-movie splatter flicks. (Though sometimes they write sweet odes to friendship as in “Homies,” or head-scratching odes to miracles, which in the ICP universe include magnets – but more on that in a minute.)

Their fans, who long ago adopted the name of Juggalos, are similarly looked down upon, with the FBI once listing them as a kind of gang, an assertion that so offended Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope that they teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union to fight the feds in court.

But there’s nothing scary at all in conversation with Violent J. It’s all love and blessings and different ways of connecting with God. Seriously.

“I think the key to our getting along so well and our longevity because of it is we love each other,” he says of how he and Shaggy have stuck together for three decades now. “Sincerely. We’re best friends. We don’t even argue. We tell each other things we can’t tell our wives.”

The secret is the same as any good relationship, he explains. They make sure to give each other space — no codependent clowns here.

“We spend every day together so the second half of the day, when we’re home, that’s like our away-from-each-other time,” Violent J says. “I think that’s probably the biggest reason we get along.”

As for keeping their modest but die-hard fan base with them over the years, “that’s a straight-up blessing, brother,” he says. “I think it’s God. I think God talks to people through many, many other people. And I think we do our role for him.”

It’s God that’s allowed ICP its success, Violent J continues.

“I think he blesses us with with the three ingredients that are the keys to our success,” he says. “Which is creativity, drive, and … I guess imagination would be the same thing as creativity. And a musical ear. Musical talent, you know what I’m saying? Those three things.”

Why then do some pious people single out Insane Clown Posse and its Juggalo following as bad actors, followers of darkness, not light?

“They don’t hear the message in the music,” Violent J says of the ICP philosophy in which the concept of the Dark Carnival fills the role of a kind of limbo through which the Insane Clown Posse and their fans must strive to find their way to a place akin to heaven. “They don’t understand it, they don’t think it’s anything special.”

But at every show, Juggalos come up to the group and tell them how the music and its message helped them understand their lives, Violent J says.

“And most of all it led them to Shangri-La, which is our way of saying God without sounding corny,” he says. “Because in today’s day and age some things in religion sound kind of corny. So we have sort of code words that we use to hide it.

“If we’re doing that type of good, who cares about everybody else that thinks of us as this evil thing?”

Only occasionally does the Insane Clown Posse break outside of its own niche in the world into the mainstream, so we asked Violent J his take on a few of those occasions.

On the FBI labeling Juggalos a gang: “We had to say, “(Bleep) you,’” he says of the decision to fight the listing. The ACLU teamed up with the group and the lawsuit was in and out of court for a few years before apparently ending unsuccessfully for the band. But a march in Washington D.C. in 2017 got a large amount of media attention and helped them make their point. “It turned out to be the best, greatest, most wonderful thing we ever did,” Violent J says of the demonstration.

On the mocking they got for “Miracles,” a song that included the line, “(Bleepin’) magnets, how do they work?”: “That was awesome,” he says. “To go viral like that? I don’t really give a (fig) what everybody thought about that line being stupid. I had a son that was asking me that very same thing. That’s who I was talking about when I wrote the lines. So I don’t give a damn about people laughing at that.”

On being parodied multiple times on “Saturday Night Live”: “That’s so much an honor,” Violent J says. “Nobody would even get the joke if they didn’t know what we were talking about. And the whole staff of ‘Saturday Night Live’ came down to our show. Unbelievable.”

On Shaggy 2 Dope attempting to dropkick Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst on stage earlier this month: “Well, you know, just wild style,” he says. “Fred Durst is a friend of ours, you know what I mean? Just having fun. Things look so crazy when they get into the news wire. He obviously threw it as a fake thing. If he actually wanted to hit him I don’t think he would have thrown a pro wrestling dropkick. It probably would have looked a lot more serious and ruthless.”

Insane Clown Posse’s Hallowicked Traveling Freak Show Silver Jubilee

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24

Where: The City National Grove of Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim

If you bump up the quality and view it from all the camera angles you can see clearly stagehand/security pulling Shaggy down in midair preventing him from connecting the Dropkick and sending Red Hat boy 5 6 rows into the crowd. saying it is a joke is only to save face we all know Fred bratwurst from limp dick invited ICP on the family values tour back in the day only to say psych just kidding fuck off clowns Shaggy seen an awesome opportunity to get Payback and probably get a lot of media attention to Hype the new Joker’s card only for this expert security stagehand Ninja to pull him down in mid-air

Oh and to say ICP and Limp Bizkit’s are friends that is the real joke LOL I remember Violent J on the Juggalo show introducing Red Hat Boy song and mocking him saying I get mad and I break shit in a whiny bitch boy voice. He also mentions limp dick in the Superstar song like he’s some kind of super celebrity hanging out with Fred LOL I wish on the butterfly Shaggy would have booted that bitch boy off the stage I’m willing to bet money that this incident is the reason why f f f is pushed back I’m sure mr. 2 Dope is being charged with assault and with his current criminal record lawyers and Court days could put a grinding halt to the business

Could you see the headlines if the Dropkick connected Shaggy 2 Dope dropkicks Fred Durst offstage promoting their new album Fearless Fred Fury fuck that stagehand security Ninja for pulling him down mid-air kick

Fred Durst is an great guy! He is such a humble person and it doesn’t surprise me that they are friends! Fred is so misunderstood and he doesn’t deserve all the hate, just in the same way as ICP and Juggalos doesn’t deserve all the hate! People are just programmed by the mainstream to hate him, just how they are programmed to hate ICP and Juggalos.

I was disappointed by so many Juggalos hating Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit, i really thought that Juggalos were more open-minded instead of jumping the hate hype train..

They were acting exactly the same way as those who are haters of ICP and Juggalos! ICP and Limp Bizkit is in the same boat, both bands are hated for being different and doing their own thing! Fred Durst is coming from the same background as Violent J and Shaggy, they are all misfits/outsiders and will always be hated by the general opinion.

Form your own opinion, If you really look up Fred Durst/Limp Bizkit,you will see what i talk about, and even if you don’t like the music, they are really great guys with great passion but so misunderstood. The same goes for those who hate ICP/Juggalos, if they really look up who they are and what they are, you will see that its not what they say it is.

(Just look up all the journalists coming to the Gathering or interviewing ICP for example,they were wrong in the end)

Philip J. Fry- Trust me, you’re not alone homie. Limp Bizkit is my all time no. 1 favorite band, pre-juggalohood, all of that. No joke. The band that introduced me to heavy music prepubescent at age 11. I always defended one to the others fanbase, even thru Bizkits mainstream decline around 2004. Most of the Juggalos I grew up with here in SD liked them too. Both are awesome man!! Whoop whoop!

If they do this month long Hallowicked tour next year, I’d like to see ICP, Brotha Lynch Hung, Necro and The Dayton Family. But nice interview, hope there is a FLH one with ICP in the near future. And as for the Fred Durst incident, I find it funny how his DJ was the only one that took anything seriously, unless he too, was putting on an act.

So it was all a joke? Apparently limb bizkit didn’t get it considering he said “what a pussy he couldn’t even pull it off” and do leathal didn’t think it was funny. I call bullshit FAKENEWS. Or maybe it was just to get in the spotlight for a bit before furious Fred fury drops.

SpOOky J- Thats really dope bro, i feel you right there cause i pretty much went through the same. I am glad to know that there is other Juggalos loving that music too, it was thanks to Limp Bizkit and Fred that i actually discovered ICP and the whole Juggalo World, so for me it was the other way around, ive always loved rap but there wasn’t anything dark and heavy, nothing that i could relate to at the time, and thats how it just blew my mind when i discovered ICP. Barely nobody knows who ICP is in my country, there is only a very few Juggalos, i didn’t know that there was a whole World to explore! I hope that Limp Bizkit will play the Gathering of the Juggalos tho, i think it would be a perfect fit and i would love a Limp Bizkit track with ICPs rap in it :D

Yes maybe this whole thing was a joke that went wrong? Fred maybe didn’t really notice who it was and maybe thought it was a random drunk from the audience,it happens all the time that people try to get up stage and fuck things up, and it all happend very quickly, people were all over Shaggy at the time he failed that dropkick. It was probably a whole misunderstanding and as usual the media hypes everything up.

sigh he didn’t fail the dropkick, he threw it wrestling style, it was blatantly a wrestling dropkick and wasn’t actually tryna kick Durst off stage, anyone that cant see that is just a little touched in the head. I like the comparison you made between ICP and Limp Bizkit though.

I think you’re touched in your head he actually went on Instagram and admitted to everybody he was about to commit the crime by kicking Fred off stage he was pulled down by security stagehand ninja midair you can clearly see it and now they saying it’s a big joke because he failed cuz of that stage had ninja stopping him

I’m sure Shaggy would take the assault charges if the kick actually connected but since he was stopped mid air they’re claiming it was a joke.. who knows if Shaggy is actually being charged with anything we will probably never know

there is no way to deliver a dropkick except ‘wrestling style’.
you basicly cant perform a dropkick in a real fight. if you dont believe me, try it during your next fight. the other guy will clean you out.
even as an ambush, its still about the worst possible opening attack.
pro wrestlers are quite well aware of this, what with the whole thing about how their opponent has to sell all moves. and when they do get into a fight, you can bet that they dont be using wrestling moves.